Natural Hazards Research Summit 2024: Innovations in Cold-formed Steel Design and Construction: Towards Tall, Fast, Dry, Multi-hazard Resilience

The light weight and ductility offered by cold-formed steel- (CFS) framed building systems aligns precisely with the system resiliency needs in moderate to high seismically active regions. However, the use of CFS framing for construction of mid to high-rise structures in the North American construction industry is severely restricted due to a lack of available full-scale system level test data documenting both earthquake and post-earthquake fire response. To fully utilize this form of construction and meet the growing needs of urban housing needs, a 10-story CFS-framed building is planned to be tested under increasing earthquake hazard scenarios, followed by live fire testing, at the NHERI 6-DOF Large High-Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST6) facility at University of California, San Diego. ​​This experimental program is also complemented with numerical models to provide predictions of the test building seismic behavior, guiding earthquake motion selection and scaling which define the test protocol.

The test building, coined CFS10 (cfs10.ucsd.edu), will integrate architectural finishes and will be the first to have a 100ft building height, exceeding current height limitations (6-stories or 65ft), set by present ASCE 7 design standards. The building design advances the lateral force resisting system (LFRS) details to provide for the increases in shear and overturning moment demands due to the increase in building height. Additionally, the experimental program offers an exciting opportunity for collaboration between researchers and industry partners to bring forth new ideas to realize modular construction within CFS framing systems. The test building will explore a variety of construction methods, namely, conventional stick-framing (1D), panelized (2D), and volumetric (3D) modular construction within one building specimen, allowing a unique opportunity to document and compare the efficiency of each construction method. The test will also provide a valuable opportunity to examine the evolution of damage of different nonstructural components and systems within a building and develop accurate fragility information, which can be used to improve loss and downtime predictions and evaluate the functional recovery performance. The CFS-NHERI capstone experimental program will generate valuable knowledge which accrues benefits not just for CFS-framed systems, but all systems. Benefiting from extensive partnerships and support from industry, this program offers direct support for advancing design guidelines and construction practices.